Struggling to make their way in this strange new place, the Golem and the Jinni try to fit in with their neighbors while masking their true natures. Trapped in an old copper flask by a Bedouin wizard centuries ago, he is released accidentally by a tinsmith in a Lower Manhattan shop.
Ahmad is a jinni, a being of fire, born in the ancient Syrian Desert. When her master dies at sea on the voyage from Poland, she is unmoored and adrift as the ship arrives in New York Harbor. Chava is a golem, a creature made of clay, brought to life by a strange man who dabbles in dark Kabbalistic magic. Helene Wecker's dazzling debut novel tells the story of two supernatural creatures who appear mysteriously in 1899 New York. In turn, their story finds us not only rooting for them to find peace and happiness, but gaining a better understanding of our own human nature in the process. These mythical characters from otherwise clashing cultures not only coexist, but come to rely upon one another in order to exist at all. The Golem is an insatiably curious clay "woman" that was created to seem human while serving only her husband the Jinni is a magical "man" whose fascination with mortals has left him nearly stripped of his own nature and forced to live as one. Beyond reality, however, The Golem and the Jinni, as the title implies, is also a fantastic work of fantasy.
Set primarily in turn-of-the-century Manhattan, it deliberately details the immigrant experience-the wonders and hardships of being in a new country and the discoveries, triumphs, and failures that follow-while bringing the city itself to life with such passion that New York of yore seems like a magical land. An Amazon Best Book of the Month, April 2013: Imaginative and meticulously researched, this enchanting debut novel from Helene Wecker is, in reality, an historical fiction.
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